This invention relates to printing of lottery and coupon tickets, and particularly to those that are produced by the computer printing process for instant lattery tickets and commercial coupons.
Within the last ten years large lottery games for the general public have been run by many State lottery commissions. These commissions raise funds for State operation by "instant lottery" games in which tickets are sold to the general public and are immediately on purchase checked against previously known winding ticket numbers, or game play data combinations.
These lottery tickets have the winning number or game play data printed on the face thereof which is hidden by a coating layer. The purchaser of the ticket rubs off the scratch-off coating, thereby destroying it, in order to learn the game play data combination on the ticket which possibly might match the known winning combination for the lottery.
Millions of tickets are sold by the State lottery commissions. The prizes in the form of money winners are large, and a single ticket might be worth several millions of dollars won via grand prize drawings.
The State lottery commissions which run these "instant lottery" games act as distributors of these tickets.
The actual games themselves, and the services with respect to them, including printing of the millions of tickets to be sold, are obtained from printing suppliers. Contracts for such games are normally awarded on a bid basis. The contractor is required to furnish the related game services as well as to provide adequate security guarantees. Also written guarantees are required from the contractors with respect to the ratio of prizes paid out through winning tickets to the total revenues derived from the sale of tickets. This ratio is known as the prize structure for a particular instant game.
The tickets are produced on high speed presses and game play data (winning number combinations) and identifying control/validation numbers are printed on the tickets by computer controlled ink jet imagers.
In these lottery games, where millions of tickets are printed and subsequently sold, it is important that the identity of the winning number combination on the given ticket can not be determined until after the ticket has been purchased and the coating has been removed.
Compromizing of security, that is identifying of the ticket game play data before purchase, must be prevented to ensure successful operation of the games.
Computer-controlled imaging of the game play data and control numbering on the tickets has come into widespread use because of the high production rates, greater economies and the greater security provided than the previously used sheet printed production process.
In the computer imaged process, the game play data for each lottery ticket, that is, the ticket winning or loosing number combinations are generated by computer techniques in which the game play data are scrambled through complex computer algorithms, and are placed on magnetic tapes along with other ticket control information. The magnetic tapes are inputted to the computer controlled ink jet imagers and control the data that are printed on the successive lottery tickets.
The numbers that eventually are printed on successive lottery tickets are all part of a complete group or pool of numbers, all of which are scrambled and applied in what appears to be a random fashion. The numbers are mixed to produce a successive listing of successive random numbers which are then applied to the successive tickets. The numbering is sufficiently complex to prevent discovery of the relationship between the tickets that are printed in successive fashion. This list of successive random numbers is supplied from magnetic tapes which control operation of the ink jet imagers.
It is also necessary to supply a serial number in the form of a Pack/Book-ticket number and/or a covered (or uncovered) validation number to each ticket for identification, distribution control, and validation purposes. The serial numbers and/or validation numbers must have a relationship to the covered game play data combinations to permit the lottery operator to validate winning tickets and to readily determine that the winning game play data has not been altered or counterfeited. This is possible only if there is a relationship between the serial number and/or validation number of the ticket and the game play data applied to the tickets in a single pass through the press.
This single pass process also means that the game play data, the serial numbers, and/or the validation numbers are generated from the same control tape which commonly controls the ink jet imager that applies this data on the tickets. Although not a practical problem, there is a theoretical possibility of an individual in the production process being in collusion with other individuals involved in the computer program process and state lottery employees involved in the distribution of tickets, to learn the location of a winning ticket at a particular sales outlet.
If the game play data and the ticket serial numbers are not imaged at the same time, the correlation between them is broken. Since the serial (pack/book-ticket) numbers are used to control the inventory, accounting and distribution of tickets to sales agents, the theoretical possibility of tracking a winning ticket through the data generation/manufacturing/distribution process is eliminated. This is accomplished by a two pass production process whereby two separate ink-jet imagers are used to independently apply: (1) the game play data and the validation number on the face of the ticket during the first pass through the press, and (2) the ticket serial (pack/book-ticket) numbers on either the front or the back of the tickets with a second ink-jet imager during the second pass.
Additional security can be obtained in this two pass method by random selection of rolls of tickets imaged on the first line containing the first machine for further processing the second process line.
If the game play data and the ticket serial numbers are not imaged at the same time, on interruption of imaging of the game play data, the independent printing of a serial number or numbers to the defective ticket would result in loss of those ticket serial numbers. Frequent interruptions in the first pass imaging of tickets is not uncommon, and in such cases large blocks of assigned serial numbers from the pool of tickets would be wasted on voided first pass tickets. This could adversely effect the integrity of the prize structure and create other problems unless the application of the ticket serial numbers to valid first pass tickets is closely controlled. Ideally, ticket serial numbers should only be applied when valid game play data exists on the ticket. In practice, voided game play data and wasted serial numbers on defective ticket stock is kept to a minimum so as not to affect the integrity of the prize structure, and create accounting and distribution problems.
In addition, this same problem is encountered with respect to commercial coupons, in which there are give away coupons having large prizes which must be accounted for and distributed to the public in accordance with the advertised prize structure.